Loving the Law

You may have heard the story about a family that was entertaining another family of friends in their home for an evening of food and fellowship. After a good meal, they were all seated in the den visiting. There was a little four-year-old playing quietly on the floor with his toys. There was a lull in the conversation, and the four-year-old spoke into the silence, repeating something he had heard his older brother say while reciting his math problems. “Two times two is four,” the little boy said thoughtlessly. Everyone gasped at the child’s ability. The mother just knew she had a child genius on her hands! She said proudly, “What did you say dear? Say it again”. The little boy, surprised by all the attention he was receiving, said, “two times two is four.” And they expressed their amazement that a child so young could know so much. But suddenly, while they were discussing his brilliance, he interrupted and said, “Mommy… what’s a two? You see he had the information but he lacked the understanding.

When I began studying this text in Exodus, I kinda felt like that four year old! In my heart, I hunger for more than the “information”, I hunger for “understanding”. Amen?

The passage that we are going to focus on this morning is Exodus 20:1-6. Together we are going to see ………that God gave the Law to express His love.

The text says: Then God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
"You shall have no other gods before Me.
"You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

I think it is important to note that this is the first time that God speaks directly to the Israelites after bringing them out of Egypt. Before this, and interestingly after this, God used Moses to communicate with them. If you look back in chapter 19 we see that Moses had been preparing the people for three days for this meeting with God! On the third day, chapter 19 verse 17 says, Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. When I read that, I am reminded that very little has changed, people still need someone to bring them to Jesus!

How appropriate that God begins his address to the people in chapter 20 with giving them His clear identity. He says, “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery”. God knew that the Israelites had been in a land that had many gods. Their hearts were open to anything; they were not exclusive in their worship. For them to add another god would not have been a problem. The Israelites had become familiar, too familiar with having many gods for different needs. We see this very thing in our own society today don’t we? People are still comfortable with many “gods” As a matter of fact, you can talk about god, as long as you don’t mention Jesus.

I see God revealing two principles to them in this verse. He is saying to them, “I am the I am Moses told you about! I am the Yahweh, the only one worthy – In the same breath God is reminding the people of the bondage that He rescued them from. He is making clear in their minds and hearts who He is, the only true God that is capable of rescuing them.
Thus, the first commandment comes for the people.– “You shall have no others gods before me” – A more accurate translation of the Hebrew there is besides me! God is saying I am and there is no other! He is calling them into an exclusive worship with Him being the only one true God.

After God gives His clear identity to the people He then proceeds in giving HIS people clear instructions to follow.

One could refer to the entire passage with this in mind. God has provided the Ten Commandments as instructions to be followed for His people’s protection. I’ve shared with you before that I teach ninth and tenth grade girls. So often I find myself repeating this again and again to them – WHEN GOD SAYS NO, HE IS SIMPLY SAYING PLEASE DON’T HURT YOURSELF. Young people, well, even adults, have a hard time understanding that. Jesus is absolutely crazy about you, crazy about His people! He is not holding back anything from us that would bring us joy!

When God spoke to His people and told them not to make any idols for themselves, he was telling them how to protect their hearts from being deceived. He was protecting them.

Not only did God meet with the people to give them His clear identity, and equip them with clear instructions but to also reveal to them His clear intentions.

While I was meditating on this passage of scripture, I found my self asking the Holy Spirit to help me understand, one of my questions was:
Why did you speak to the people in this moment? If you guys remember with me, up until this point the people had Moses telling them God’s message. This chapter even concludes the same way, Moses as mediator. Then later on in chapter 32 and again in 34God gives Moses the tablets with the commandments on them. So why does God speak to the people here?

The Holy Spirit drew my attention to verse 6 in this passage. It says, “but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.”
The purpose of God speaking to the people here, and giving them the commandments was to show them His loving-kindness! God is a personal God, “I am”, personal pronoun. He desired then and still does today, to have a love relationship with the people, for them to know Him personally.

I thank God that we have the full Bible, that He has reveled Himself completely to us. Later on we read Paul writing of the law in Galatians 3 when he says the law was added because of transgressions then He says the law is our tutor to lead us to Christ. Kay Arthur calls the Law our coach, a good and effective coach, but it can’t give us the ability we need to play life’s game without breaking the rules. Once the tutor has done its work, we come to the place where we throw our hands up in surrender and say, “I can’t achieve righteousness. I’m a sinner, a transgressor of the Law; there’s no hope. And we hear Jesus say, I can. Will you believe in me?